Author: cherriejwebb@gmail.com

Brazile is spreading Bernie’s lies to cash in on book sales. She claims Hillary “controlled” the DNC because of a fundraising deal but she fails to mention that Bernie Sanders signed the SAME fundraising deal with the DNC!

Obama had the same deal in 2008 and 2012. Obama left the party with millions in debt after the 2012 election. In 2015, DWS approached the Clinton AND Sanders campaigns and BOTH signed the same deal, so both campaigns could raise money for the DNC and state Democratic parties.

Clinton gladly supported her party and raised money for the DNC and down ticket candidates. What did Saint Bernie do? He ran on the Democratic Party ticket, accepted massive party resources, got tons of media exposure, raised $230 Million and kept every nickel of it for his own campaign and never gave the Democratic Party a dime. Bernie stuck us with the tab.

The Democratic Party is just that. It’s a party based on membership. It’s not a public entity. Party primaries are not public elections. They are party primaries for party members to select their party’s nominee, which we did. By a vast majority, real Democrats did not and do not want the divisive non-Democrat Bernie Sanders as our candidate.

Elizabeth Warren is a former Republican who has an anti-Democratic agenda. Her comments today about Hillary and “DNC rigging” are baseless. The evidence does NOT substantiate her claims. Not one single email leaked from the DNC shows ANY rigging or corruption or actual action taken against Bernie Sanders. A judge agreed and threw the case out of court.

Jumping on this propaganda bandwagon against the Democratic party is shameful. At least we now know officially where these women stand and we can react accordingly.

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Shared from a friend“I draw a line down the middle of a chalkboard, sketching a male symbol on one side and a female symbol on the other. Then I ask just the men: What steps do you guys take, on a daily basis, to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? At first there is a kind of awkward silence as the men try to figure out if they’ve been asked a trick question. The silence gives way to a smattering of nervous laughter. Occasionally, a young a guy will raise his hand and say, ‘I stay out of prison.’ This is typically followed by another moment of laughter, before someone finally raises his hand and soberly states, ‘Nothing. I don’t think about it.’ Then I ask women the same question. What steps do you take on a daily basis to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? Women throughout the audience immediately start raising their hands. As the men sit in stunned silence, the women recount safety precautions they take as part of their daily routine. Here are some of their answers: Hold my keys as a potential weapon. Look in the back seat of the car before getting in. Carry a cell phone. Don’t go jogging at night. Lock all the windows when I sleep, even on hot summer nights. Be careful not to drink too much. Don’t put my drink down and come back to it; make sure I see it being poured. Own a big dog. Carry Mace or pepper spray. Have an unlisted phone number. Have a man’s voice on my answering machine. Park in well-lit areas. Don’t use parking garages. Don’t get on elevators with only one man, or with a group of men. Vary my route home from work. Watch what I wear. Don’t use highway rest areas. Use a home alarm system. Don’t wear headphones when jogging. Avoid forests or wooded areas, even in the daytime. Don’t take a first-floor apartment. Go out in groups. Own a firearm. Meet men on first dates in public places. Make sure to have a car or cab fare. Don’t make eye contact with men on the street. Make assertive eye contact with men on the street.”― Jackson Katz, The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help

“It must be cold and miserable standing in the shadow of someone greater and smarter, more loved and more admired. It must be infuriating to have risen on the wings of your derision of that person’s every decision, and even his very existence, and yet not be able to measure up — in either stratagem or efficacy — when you sit where that person once sat.

This is the existence of Donald Trump in the wake of President Barack Obama. Trump can’t hold a candle to Obama, so he’s taking a tiki torch to Obama’s legacy. Trump can’t get his bad ideas through Congress, but he can use the power of the presidency to sabotage or even sink Obama’s signature deeds.

In fact, if there is a defining feature of Trump as “president,” it is that he is in all ways the anti-Obama — not only on policy but also on matters of propriety and polish. While Obama was erudite, Trump is ignorant. Obama was civil, Trump is churlish. Obama was tactful, Trump is tacky.

There is a thing present in Obama and absent from Trump that no amount of money or power can alter: a sense of elegant intellectualism and taste.

The example Obama set makes the big man with the big mouth look smaller by the day. But I believe that this nonadjustable imbalance is part of what has always fueled Trump’s rage against Obama. Trump, who sees character as just another malleable thing that can be marketed and made salable, chafes at the black man who operated above the coarseness of commercial interests and whose character appeared unassailable.

America — even many of the people who were staunch opponents of Obama’s policies — admired and even adored the sense of honor and decency he brought to the office. Trump, on the other hand, is historically unpopular, and not just in America. As The Pew Research Center pointed out in June: “Trump and many of his key policies are broadly unpopular around the globe, and ratings for the U.S. have declined steeply in many nations.” Trump is reviled around the globe and America’s reputation is going down with its captain.

All of this feeds Trump’s consuming obsession with undoing everything Obama did. It is his personal crusade, but he also carries the flag for the millions of Americans — mostly all Republicans — who were reflexively repulsed by Obama and the coalition that elected him.

Trump has done nearly everything in his power to roll back Obama’s policies, but none are as tempting a target as the one named after him: Obamacare.

Republicans — including Trump — campaigned for years on a lie. They knew it was a lie, but it was an enraging one that excited their base: Obama was destroying America’s health care system, but Republicans could undo the damage and replace it with their own, better bill.

First, Obama wasn’t destroying America’s health care system. To the contrary, he simply sought to make it cover more people. He moved to take American health care in a more humane, modern and civilized direction, to make it more universally accessible, even by the sick and poor who often took its absence as a given.

Second, the Republicans had no replacement plan that would cost less and cover as many or more people. That could not be done. So, their repeal-and-replace efforts failed. But that also meant that Trump’s promise was proven a lie. Trump has no problem lying, but in the end he wants his lies to look plausible.

Trump makes assertions for which there is no evidence — either knowingly lying, recklessly boasting or wishfully thinking — then seeks support for those statements, support that is often lacking because the statements are baseless.

He violates a basic protocol of human communication: Be sure of it before you say it. His way is to say something wrong, then bend reality to make it appear right. This is why the age of Trump is so maddening and stupefying: He is warping reality.

Last week he took more swipes at undermining the A.C.A.: Asking his administration to find ways to increase competition among insurers (a move many worry will move younger, healthier people out of the marketplace) and stopping the so-called “cost-sharing reduction” (CSR) payments — federal subsidies paid to insurance companies to help finance coverage for low-income Americans (a move many believe will send premiums soaring for those people).

Trump is doing this even though it will likely wreak havoc on countless lives. He is doing this even though a Kaiser Health Tracking Poll released Friday found that most Americans want Trump and Congress to stop trying to repeal the law, and instead work on legislation to stabilize the marketplaces and guarantee health care to Americans.

Furthermore, six in 10 Americans believe Congress should guarantee cost-sharing reduction payments, as opposed to only a third who view these payments as a “bailout of insurance companies,” as Trump has called them. There is no real reason to cut these payments, other than to save face and conceal the farce.

Trump isn’t governing with a vision, he’s governing out of spite. Obama’s effectiveness highlights Trump’s ineptitude, and this incenses Trump.”

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Borrowed from a friend’s page: David Tice-Mintz, Kandy Loyde “Dear obnoxious ungrateful conservatives who are suffering because of Hurricane Harvey, I am sorry for your suffering, sorry for your losses, sorry for the governance of your state that still hasn’t a clue how to prepare for hurricanes after dealing with Hurricane Ike, Hurricane Andrew, Hurricane Katrina, clear back to Hurricane Carla in 1961. I am sorry that the days to come will be fraught with despair, more terrible weather, shortages and the tedious and dangerous cleaning up to come in the aftermath of all catastrophes. I will send as much help as I can, because I hate that you are suffering and I don’t want anyone to do without during this bleak time. But will you, with your conservative views, take the help in the manner it is offered, as freely given by others, not as a right owed to you because of your skin color or political beliefs? Right now people are being saved by undocumented immigrants, so it’s a good thing that wall wasn’t built before this hurricane hit. Right now people are being saved by transgender people, gay people, women who have had abortions and the men that agreed that they had the choice to do so. Right now Muslims, Hindus, Jewish people and every other religion are working to make sure you have things you need; food, medical care, supplies. Right now the Clintons, Obamas and other democratic celebrities are sending help, money, raising awareness, where is the Trump Foundation in all this? Right now the people you call libtards are some of the first responders, they were helping evacuate and care for people right from the start. The people that you claim are stealing jobs are doing the dangerous jobs no one else wants to do. The people you proudly shake your rebel flag at to remind them of their ancestors’ slavery are carrying children out of flooded houses and rescuing nursing home residents. They overlook your hate and views because their goal is to help all people, not just a small chosen few of the right color or right religion. It’s times like this that bring us all together, but it also reminds us that last week you were shouting your racist, anti-immigrant, misogynistic, right wing, smaller government, “fake media” crap at anyone that had a different opinion. The “fake media” have been telling you this was going to happen for a week. The “fake” scientists have been warning about climate change for decades, while you and our president scoff at them. The races you maligned now have their hands out, offering you help that you can get nowhere else. Do you feel even ONE twinge of conscience? Do you feel ONE moment of shame that your political bigotry has maligned so many that are now helping you and those you love? Your state will be rebuilt by people that you have worked hard to take healthcare from, to ban from serving in the military, to prevent from marrying, to deport, and to oppress with your racist symbols. Believe me; it’s not going to ONLY be pristine whites that are all Christians doing the dirty work. And Trump is not going to share a dime of his billions without getting a kick back like he does when he charges us for the secret service staying at his properties. It’s 2017. I find myself amazed that racism is still an issue, that women can’t control their bodies, that white people were so threatened by a black president. I find it staggering that people deny science, that anyone’s consenting adult sex life is even a matter of discussion. I find it incredible that this type of stupidity still exists and is fed by Fox News, Breibart, Infowars ( by the way, where are they in this catastrophe?) I find it amazing that the insular news stations you watch and read are the actual fake news, while the reality of the communities you live in is disregarded because it doesn’t suit your biased views. So are you going to take the help offered, in the spirit it was offered, by the people of all races, religions, genders, nationalities and return the favor and treat them fairly, decently and with high regard? Or are you going to take the help and go back to being the conservative, racist, libtard hating oppressor you were before the storm hit? Because to do so goes against every rule of Christianity. The choice is yours; just realize that one day your views may drive others to take the same tack. One day the people that help may turn their backs on those that malign them. I can’t blame them; it’s gone on far too long. It’s time to let the hate and divineness wash back out to sea like the retreating flood waters. It’s time to realize that Fox News, Breibart, Infowars are playing on your fears and ignorance, while doing nothing of actual merit in the world. Until they give you a hand up, until they wade through the water to save a person’s life, until they look past skin color to help EVERYONE in need, they are the enemy of the United States. See them for what they are, and see the people around you for what they actually are, caring, helpful, hardworking, regardless of skin color, religion, sexual identity. They deserve respect and the right to be happy, not hatred and oppression.”

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Borrowed from a friend’s page: David Tice-Mintz, Kandy Loyde “Dear obnoxious ungrateful conservatives who are suffering because of Hurricane Harvey, I am sorry for your suffering, sorry for your losses, sorry for the governance of your state that still hasn’t a clue how to prepare for hurricanes after dealing with Hurricane Ike, Hurricane Andrew, Hurricane Katrina, clear back to Hurricane Carla in 1961. I am sorry that the days to come will be fraught with despair, more terrible weather, shortages and the tedious and dangerous cleaning up to come in the aftermath of all catastrophes. I will send as much help as I can, because I hate that you are suffering and I don’t want anyone to do without during this bleak time. But will you, with your conservative views, take the help in the manner it is offered, as freely given by others, not as a right owed to you because of your skin color or political beliefs? Right now people are being saved by undocumented immigrants, so it’s a good thing that wall wasn’t built before this hurricane hit. Right now people are being saved by transgender people, gay people, women who have had abortions and the men that agreed that they had the choice to do so. Right now Muslims, Hindus, Jewish people and every other religion are working to make sure you have things you need; food, medical care, supplies. Right now the Clintons, Obamas and other democratic celebrities are sending help, money, raising awareness, where is the Trump Foundation in all this? Right now the people you call libtards are some of the first responders, they were helping evacuate and care for people right from the start. The people that you claim are stealing jobs are doing the dangerous jobs no one else wants to do. The people you proudly shake your rebel flag at to remind them of their ancestors’ slavery are carrying children out of flooded houses and rescuing nursing home residents. They overlook your hate and views because their goal is to help all people, not just a small chosen few of the right color or right religion. It’s times like this that bring us all together, but it also reminds us that last week you were shouting your racist, anti-immigrant, misogynistic, right wing, smaller government, “fake media” crap at anyone that had a different opinion. The “fake media” have been telling you this was going to happen for a week. The “fake” scientists have been warning about climate change for decades, while you and our president scoff at them. The races you maligned now have their hands out, offering you help that you can get nowhere else. Do you feel even ONE twinge of conscience? Do you feel ONE moment of shame that your political bigotry has maligned so many that are now helping you and those you love? Your state will be rebuilt by people that you have worked hard to take healthcare from, to ban from serving in the military, to prevent from marrying, to deport, and to oppress with your racist symbols. Believe me; it’s not going to ONLY be pristine whites that are all Christians doing the dirty work. And Trump is not going to share a dime of his billions without getting a kick back like he does when he charges us for the secret service staying at his properties. It’s 2017. I find myself amazed that racism is still an issue, that women can’t control their bodies, that white people were so threatened by a black president. I find it staggering that people deny science, that anyone’s consenting adult sex life is even a matter of discussion. I find it incredible that this type of stupidity still exists and is fed by Fox News, Breibart, Infowars ( by the way, where are they in this catastrophe?) I find it amazing that the insular news stations you watch and read are the actual fake news, while the reality of the communities you live in is disregarded because it doesn’t suit your biased views. So are you going to take the help offered, in the spirit it was offered, by the people of all races, religions, genders, nationalities and return the favor and treat them fairly, decently and with high regard? Or are you going to take the help and go back to being the conservative, racist, libtard hating oppressor you were before the storm hit? Because to do so goes against every rule of Christianity. The choice is yours; just realize that one day your views may drive others to take the same tack. One day the people that help may turn their backs on those that malign them. I can’t blame them; it’s gone on far too long. It’s time to let the hate and divineness wash back out to sea like the retreating flood waters. It’s time to realize that Fox News, Breibart, Infowars are playing on your fears and ignorance, while doing nothing of actual merit in the world. Until they give you a hand up, until they wade through the water to save a person’s life, until they look past skin color to help EVERYONE in need, they are the enemy of the United States. See them for what they are, and see the people around you for what they actually are, caring, helpful, hardworking, regardless of skin color, religion, sexual identity. They deserve respect and the right to be happy, not hatred and oppression.”

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Thanks to Cheryl Sparks Salerno for reminding us of the good old days before Obamacare. Just makes the Republicant efforts at repeal criminal. Adding to the crime is their politicization of Obamacare just to destroy the Obama presidency. Here’s Cheryl’s report from the trenches in the good old pre-Obamacare days: We cannot go back to pre-ACA conditions. A cautionary reminder, lest we forget or never knew: From another’s post: I sold health insurance from 2004-2006 for one of the largest health insurance companies in ~30 states. Maybe because we’ve had ACA for a while, people don’t really remember what it was like then, but I want people to know that I declined people health insurance on a DAILY BASIS. Some of the things that resulted in automatic “DNQ” (does not qualify) determination from our underwriters, which means there was NO policy we would issue you, included (and these were all standard in the industry): – Ever, in your life, having a heart attack or stroke – Ever, in your life, receiving any sort of mental health care or substance abuse treatment in any inpatient setting (I saw a woman in her 40s declined insurance because she was a ‘cutter’ in the 1980s and was hospitalized for that, yes, more than 20 years prior) – Having a history of most (but not all) forms of cancer – Diabetes or pre-diabetes – Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – Crohn’s Disease & Ulcerative colitis – Connective tissue disorder – Autism – Obesity (Defined strictly by BMI score) – Having both high blood pressure and high cholesterol – Being pregnant (fortunately at least a lot of these women could get on Medicaid, even pre-ACA, because conservatives were worried they would just choose to have an abortion if they couldn’t pay bills from delivery). – If you were a woman of child-bearing age and you had ever given birth to a pre-term baby, we would decline coverage for YOU, even if not currently pregnant, because the risk of an additional pre-term birth was greater and we would be on the line for that in the event you did get pregnant again Other health conditions, like asthma, allergies, high blood pressure on its own, wouldn’t necessarily result in a DNQ, but would result in a permanent “rider” to your policy which mean that we agreed to cover you EXCEPT any medical bills, prescriptions, incurred related to your asthma, allergies, etc. Another odd thing I remember: sometimes fathers would get ordered by judges as part of their child support order to pay for their kids’ health insurance. But then we (and everyone else) refused to insure the kid due to health history, and they’d basically be under the threat of violating the judge’s order and maybe even going to jail. It was a very odd legal issue that I never really saw resolved. lots of times the judges would think the fathers were lying about being unable to procure insurance and were just being lazy. I think lots of people didn’t realize how crummy the individual health insurance landscape really was until they called to try to obtain it. I had to console people in tears on a regular basis. We were instructed by management to just get them off the phone as quickly as possible to free the phone line for a healthy person. One line that was popular to tell people was “well you wouldn’t ask a car insurance company to insure your car after it’s been in an accident!” but it felt incredibly heartless to compare someone’s autistic son to a car accident, so I never said that. All I could tell them to do really was either try to get in their state’s crummy and expensive “high risk pool” (if there was one, some states didn’t even have that) and write their members of Congress. Looks like we might be heading back to these lovely days.

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Thanks to Vickie Wagner who originally posted this detailing Sheriff Arpaio’s “service” to his community.

Under his “management”: Officers under Arpaio’s employment once grabbed a pregnant Latina woman, slammed her against a car, stomach-first, three times, and then dragged her into the patrol car and shoved her in the back seat. They left the pregnant woman alone for 30 minutes, without air conditioning, only to issue a citation for “failure to provide an ID.”In his inhumane jails, for people convicted of no crimes, and more often than not, illegally detained because of their race, Arpaio withheld sanitary pads and napkins from menstruating women for days, forced to wallow in their menstrual blood.Arpaio once neglected a mentally ill prisoner for weeks, until he had lost 20 pounds from starvation and malnourishment.Arpaio regularly kept mentally-ill people, under his care, in 85-degree heat until their psychotropic drugs malfunctioned.He regularly fed inmates rotten food. Some days they only got bread and water, despite being forced to be in 110 degree weather.Deputies under Arpaio’s supervision once raided a home by launching tear gas canisters into the house. The canisters caused the house to combust. A puppy came running out of the house. But his deputies, they drove the puppy back inside, where it burned to death. The homeowners were forced to watch their pet burn to death, while the officers laughed at them.Officers in his jail once restrained a veteran in a chair while they tased him multiple times. A few hours later, this veteran died from a cardiac arrest caused by the electric shock.Officers arrested a wheelchair bound man for possession of marijuana. Because of his disability, he required a catheter to urinate. He pounded on the cell door to ask for the catheter. To “punish” this man, guards placed him in a “restraint chair” despite not being able to use his legs. During this time, the guards broke his neck. This entire episode was caught on tape. The guards were laughing and smiling while the man writhed.A blind man was found dead in Arpaio’s jails. At first, Arpaio claimed he had died because he had fallen from a bunk bed. But, autopsies showed that officers under his supervision had beaten this blind man. This blind man later died from his injuries.A 13-year-old came forward that her uncle was raping her. The sheriff told her parents that there was no evidence of rape, but in reality, a state crime lab returned a rape kit that tested positive for semen. Sheriff Arpaio ignored this evidence and withheld it from her parents. The sheriff didn’t arresther rapist, who raped her continuously for five years until she became pregnant with his child.

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Spreading the word from someone who was there. Don’t fall for false equivalency. Self-defense doesn’t mean that “all sides” are responsible for violence. Disclaimer: I don’t personally know Sonya Knox. I’ve only seen a few video clips of the alt-right attacks on counter-protestors because I still have to be careful about my blood pressure. So on the validity of this particular witness account I’ll say “maybe” until I learn more. Please feel free to suggest good sources of information. “got this from Sonya E M Knox. Please read & circulate, stories not really being reported: From a (verified) source who was on the ground at Charlottesville.” (If you want to share, please copy-paste.) —– “I rarely post politics or anything else on Facebook …. But let me be clear. I was acting as a medic in Charlottesville. “Both sides”-ing about it is absolutely unacceptable. Content note: I’m going to get quite graphic here, because while I understand that there’s quite a range of political viewpoints among my Facebook friends, I want to *get this point through to everyone whatever your politics*. In the run-up to that weekend, some local counterprotest organizers’ families were forced to flee their homes because of violent threats. Some of them had “bodyguards” – friends escorting them everywhere they went that week, even to the grocery store, work, all the mundane places that people go in their normal lives. “On Friday night, a torch-wielding mob chanting Nazi and other racist slogans (e.g. “blood and soil,” “Jews will not replace us”), some doing Nazi salutes, surrounded, screamed “White lives matter” and “anti-white” at, a small group of college student counterprotesters who had linked arms around a statue and had a banner. They then threw fuel at them, beat them with lit torches, pepper-sprayed them, and punched them (including pepper-spraying a girl in a wheelchair). The police mostly stood by until the nazis were gone. A medic who was wearing a kippah (a Jewish skullcap) was followed in the dark by one of the nazis, and took it off after that so as not to be targeted. A university librarian who joined the students to try to protect them has now had a stroke. At some point that evening, the torch-wielders also surrounded a black church while chanting racist slogans. All of this not only hurt people that night but set expectations for how the white nationalists would behave the next day. “On Saturday morning, a line of clergy, along with a gradually growing group of other protesters, showed up outside the nazi rally (given the iconography, including swastikas, the Black Sun, and fasces, and the chants, of involved groups, I don’t have a problem using that word, don’t let anyone fool you into thinking these were mainstream conservative groups that are being described hyperbolically), facing militia movement members who were carrying assault rifles. There was shouting back and forth, and a small early fistfight where a nazi punched a nearby counterprotester who spilled coffee on him. Nazis were screaming antisemitic things at rabbis in the clergy line, and chanting “blood and soil” in response to the clergy singing “This little light of mine.” At one point, some clergy did a peaceful blockade of one of the park entrances, which was forcibly broken by an incoming white nationalist group with skulls painted on their shields. The heavy bidirectional fighting, though, mostly got going after a group of counterprotesters nonviolently blocked the way of an oncoming group of white nationalists, who broke through the blockade with clubs and heavy shields. Some people defended themselves as the white nationalists kept charging and swinging clubs. After that, there were fistfights and club-fights breaking out all around, nazis pepper-spraying and tear-gassing counterprotest crowds, plastic water bottles thrown in both directions. A nazi group that didn’t know where the entrance to the park was added to the street fights. Some clergy ran to shield vulnerable people with their bodies, and those clergy were protected by antifa-associated counterprotesters – multiple clergy/theologians have said that they would have been “crushed” and maybe killed if antifa had not protected them. This went on for a long time. For most of this, the police stood around. Eventually, they cleared both sides out of the area. “The town’s synagogue is a short distance from the park. Throughout the day, nazis paraded by it doing the Nazi salute and shouting antisemitic slurs. The police had refused to provide a guard to the synagogue for some reason, so it had hired its own armed guard. There were threats of burning it down coming in. It had to cancel a havdalah service at a congregant’s house that evening out of fear of attack. “The march that was attacked with a car by James Fields was that afternoon. What street fighting had happened was long-since over by then. It was a happy march, it was not fighting anyone. The car attack came out of nowhere and the aftermath looked like a war zone. It hit the front of the march as the march was going around a corner, and many people weren’t sure what had happened at first, people were screaming about a bomb. In addition to the woman who died, many people had serious injuries. A medic who was hit had to have emergency surgery to not lose her leg. A 13 year-old girl and her mom were among the injured. The street was covered in blood. The firefighters and paramedics were great. The police, on the other hand, rolled in an armored vehicle and threatened the crowd of survivors with a tear gas launcher. Police officers ordered the medics who were performing CPR on the woman who died to leave her and clear the area. They refused, and bystanders negotiated with the police to leave them alone. “There were several other incidents throughout the afternoon where white nationalists/nazis/whatever were menacing small groups of wandering counterprotesters with their cars, swerving toward them on the sidewalk like they were going to hit them, that kind of thing, including after the car attack. At one point my medic buddy and I were about 50 feet ahead of such a group and heard screeching car sounds and screams, and ran back, thinking for a second that there had been another terrorist attack and that this time we were the only medics on site, but fortunately it was just a scare – the driver then “rolled coal” (intentionally emitting a dark cloud of exhaust) at the people on the sidewalk before driving away. There was also an incident at some point where a young black man was badly beaten by white nationalists in a parking garage. “There is no “both sides” here. I mean, first of all, there is no moral both sides because antifascists and nazis aren’t morally the same, period. Disrupting nazis isn’t the same as being one, period. But there was also no “both sides” even beyond that. Mutual street fighting primarily kicked off by an attack from the opposing side, doesn’t compare to mowing people down with a car, to threatening a synagogue and a black church, to stalking someone for being visibly Jewish, to being part of a Nazi-slogan-screaming mob that surrounds and attacks peaceful college kids and could have easily killed one of them if the fuel thrown on a couple of them had been lit by one of the many thrown or swung torches. “Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking the Saturday rally was starting out just a rally like others, but with racist assholes. The people organizing counterprotests, whose families had to flee town, would probably take issue with that. The black church and the synagogue, the synagogue congregant who had to cancel a religious/cultural ceremony out of fear, and the ones who had to leave the building in groups out the back entrance to avoid attack, would probably take issue with that. The people who were physically attacked, on Friday night, by those in town for the Saturday rally, would probably take issue with that. “Don’t elide the difference in the questions of whether hate speech should be criminalized, and how communities and their supporters should protect themselves when people who are already threatening to kill them roll into town to rally and then physically attack community members before their rally while the police don’t stop it. Don’t invoke the Civil Rights Movement to elide it, or tsk-tsk people who were on the ground in Cville. The Civil Rights Movement had its Deacons for Defense and Justice, and similar groups. Just as importantly, many of the leading lights of the Civil Rights Movement were murdered. If you think the only valid kind of activism in response to racist hate is martyrdom, you need to at least think through the implications of that belief. “I did not have a good weekend and I have no interest in hearing comments about how, despite everything I saw and everything I said here, you think this is a “both sides” thing. If you find my activism unacceptable you are welcome to unfriend me.”

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This is NOT our fight? When President Obama was running for office, America attacked him for the words of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright. There was a sermon Minister Wright gave called “The Chicken Comes Home To Roost”. Many in the black community understood the sermon to mean the history of white people will come back to them. In a conversation I had with one of my Latino brothers, he mentioned to me the sermon “The Chicken Comes Home To Roost” In this conversation, we were talking about how the horrible acts of the white culture is now coming back upon white people. In this sermon, Pastor Wright speaks about the horrible history of the white culture. The history of death and destruction the world has faced. From White people coming to America and destroying Native Americans—-to white people stealing Africans and enslaving them here in America. From the moment they were forced to free slaves, white America has calculated every moment to place African Americans at a disadvantage to the rest of American. From dropping bombs in the Middle East, to various invasions in Central America. So here we are today……looking at the events this past weekend in VA. White people are turning on each other…..The Chicken Comes Home to Roost. So is this a battle for people of color? Many of us are asking this very question right now. If you live or have any family members in the South, the KKK meet and rally on a regular basis. We already know there are some parts of this country which are “Klan Country”. So why did this rally strike a nerve? Many people of color are looking at this battle as if we are sitting in Wimbledon and watching Venus battle Serena. Do we step in? What do we say? NOTHING that happened this weekend is new to us. Some of us wonder if the public is involved because of the anti-Semitic cries, or because of the injustice. We find ourselves asking….If this was JUST a Klan rally, would the response form the public be the same? If so, where are all the white people when the Klan still have public events in places like Alabama and Mississippi? Many people of color are standing still. Almost like a PTSD victim who lacks the ability to respond due to the re-introduction to the trauma. Many of us want to confront the problem head on. Some of us are sitting back and saying I am not getting involved at all. But one thing many people of color do know—–What Trump has said is something MANY white people feel inside, but just will not say it out loud. How do we know this…..because NOTHING will be said or done about his comments. We can all sit on social media and complain, the media can talk about it for the next 2 weeks—NOTHING will happen to this man. Many of us are now placing private bets almost one another as to when we will hear him say “nigger”. That is coming soon. So, many people of color are sitting back and wondering—Is this our fight? Is this a fight we need or want to take on? Will this fight save our children from being killed in the streets by police officers? Will this point out the members of these horrible groups that ARE police officers? Will this change the murder rate in Chicago? Will this address is high unemployment rate for people of color? So we sit silence, as the Chicken Comes Home to Roost

Here’s Laurel Brett’s latest: ” Things a Leftist Isn’t Allowed to Say” My Face book page delivers someone asking why we Hillary bitches won’t just let 2016 go and get behind Bernie in 2020. Like why are you even writing this fucked piece they would want to know. And why don’t you reserve this stuff for the Trumpers? I have been called a bitch, a cunt, a JAP, a neoliberal (apparently the worst thing you can call another person), a war monger, a cow, a sow, and had my life threatened on many occasions. That threat is nothing new for me. I first had my life threatened at 3 a.m. on the telephone in 1982 while a women’s crisis center worker for not giving an angry husband the address of his abused wife’s safe house. And that motherfucker knew where I lived. So I’m not scared, but that doesn’t mean I like it. Why don’t I reserve my Face book arguments for Trumpers? To battle the Trump administration I don’t bother with his Face book minions. Instead, I contact legislative aides calling offices to protest legislative agendas. I send postcards. I attend rallies. I battle actual initiatives. I don’t see many Trumpers on Face book. As a Jewish New Yorker I don’t have Trump supporters in the family members I regularly communicate with and none have friended me. We do have a group, Let’s Go Visit Lee Zeldin, who is our representative to Congress, and I sometimes find myself fruitlessly arguing with him and an occasional rant that someone on our side has posted. But I’ve had many friends on the Bernie side of the primary, and many members of the Resistance, which to me are the HRC warriors, post the constant pieces that still blame Hillary Clinton for too many undesired consequences to catalogue as if she, and not a Putin-Trump alliance had detailed a Democratic victory. I am not a very prominent Bernie opponent, though I have lost at least two friends to my opposition as well as membership in a closed chat room I’d been a member of for ten years. I wasn’t exactly booted out, but the ire of a very important personage and the lack of support from everyone else made it impossible to stay. Still, I usually only engage in anti-Bernie sentiments in response to the frustrations of a Resistance comrade, an egregious rewriting of facts, or another story about the elderly Bernie running for the presidency in 2020 or a strong assertion that had he been the Democratic candidate, he would have won the election. From my occasional remarks and other casual remarks on similar subjects I have learned that there are some things leftists, at least old lady leftists, are not allowed to say without being called the names I began with. To be honest, the first time I was called a bourgeois sow was in 1971 at sit-in at the office of the president of our college. The demonstration was led by a prominent student who had formed his own collective and organized many demonstrations under its aegis. My then live-in boyfriend was up in the president’s office for his first major political event. When it became clear to me that everyone was about to be arrested, I pleaded with him to avoid that since I had no way of getting home unless he drove me, not having procured a driver’s license before I went to college. The organizer, someone I had canoodled with on occasion, called me a bourgeois sow for my unconscionable self-interest. I suppose I was a hopeless bourgeois when I attended my boyfriend’s arraignment and even more bourgeois when I collected money for his bail and gave what I had left over to a general fund for all the defendants. But I digress. The continuing outrage of folks on the left has taught me that there are things leftists can never say. Women who support Hillary Clinton can never react when Bernie or Bust people insist Hillary and her tribe are splitting the party. We can never say that Bernie was the spoiler, not only throwing his hat in the ring but casting aspersions on her competence, ability, motives, and values. Her years of service, her untiring work on behalf of women, children, people of color, veterans and working people count for nothing because her rhetoric was not simplistic and lacking a revolutionary fervor. We can never say that Bernie, not Hillary, cost the Democratic Party the election. If we do, we’re called a dirty name just for voicing the opinion. Former SDS members who fought for peace, social justice, and economic equity our entire adult lives can never say that the Revolution’s ideas are empty rhetoric that has been tried again and again. We have had class revolutions in many places and the results haven’t been pretty and have most often led to political tyranny. We can’t say that HRC’s plans were grounded and that even Tom Hayden in the end decided he had to vote for Hillary. If we do, we’re called a dirty name just for voicing an opinion. Humanitarian mothers who have raised a family cannot say that although we want economic equity we are not in favor of massive social dislocation because we know the suffering it would bring. We can’t say that we want good lives for our children and everyone else’s children. We can’t say that a purity test or dogmatic ideas are sophomoric and lead to faulty conclusions and suffering. If we do, we’re called a dirty name just for voicing an opinion. Mature women who have had multiple jobs and lived complete lives can’t say that the perfect is the enemy of the good – that we’d rather see things change slowly than tear down the house and start from scratch, not because we’re apologists for any system but because we’ve lived long enough to understand human nature, greed, ambition, and meanness of spirit. We are happy when we can get things to improve, and we want things to improve for everyone except the rich. We want them to pay their fair share. We can’t say that the poor we know don’t want a revolution. They want a leg up to provide good lives for their children. If we do, we’re called a dirty name just for voicing an opinion. Nuanced thinkers can’t talk about needing to work with others. We can’t reject a world of white hats and black hats in which there are good people and bad people. We can’t say that negative traits are distributed across the entire socio-economic spectrum. We agree that Citizen’s United, Voter Suppression, Gerrymandering, Big Pharma, unregulated Wall Street, unregulated banks, unregulated industry, lack of health care are horrible conditions but that black and white ideology and simplistic plans won’t fix them for many reasons because if we do, we’re called a dirty name just for voicing an opinion. HRC supporters committed to social justice can’t insist that the lives of people of color, queer people and the reproductive rights of women are as important as the economic rights of working class white men. If we do, we’re called a dirty name for voicing an opinion. Feminists cannot suggest that the press as well as the supporters of the challenger in the Democratic primary have been sexist and biased against Hillary Clinton. We can’t point out that her positions and history have been scrutinized more than any other candidates. We can’t say that her actions speak volumes, and speak far louder than Bernie’s words because if we do we’re called a dirty name for voicing an opinion. Strong gun opponents can’t point out Bernie’s votes against gun control in support of the gun industry. Because if we do we’re called a dirty name just for voicing an opinion. Jews on the left who don’t spout extreme rhetoric can’t condemn the government of Israel while still understanding that Israel needs to exist. We can’t point out the actual history of Israeli-Arab relations. We can’t say that whereas he abhor Netanyahu and the Israeli hard liners and hate the West Bank and Gaza settlements but still sympathize with the Israeli people and Jews around the world still bearing the psychic wound of the Holocaust when half of our people were killed, one of our cultures destroyed, one of our languages annihilated because if we do we’re called very dirty names just for voicing an opinion. As a mature woman fighting political battles since joining SDS at 15 in 1966 I can’t list all the people I’ve met and worked with: William Kunstler, Abbie Hoffman, Gloria Steinem, John Lennon, Helen Caldicott, Bobby Kennedy, Ron Kovic, Bobby Seale, Cesar Chavez. I can’t say that even if other leftists don’t agree with me, my opinions come from love, from struggle, from teaching underprivileged students, immigrants, and minority students at a community college for over 30 years. I can’t say that as an older woman, a feminist, and a Jew I am automatically suspect under the purity tests of the new Young Turks because if I do I’m called a dirty name just for describing my experience.” Laurel Brett (She doesn’t see comments on my posts, so if you want to communicate with her, best is her Medium page @